Sustainability at Brock

  • Brock launches Green 2 Go re-usable container program

    Thursday, July 27, 2017 | By

    MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2017 | by 

    Green 2 Go programBrock Hospitality Services Marketing Manager Christina Richards and Kendra Sinodinos, Assistant Manager, Guernsey Market, show off the new Green 2 Go card that will allow dining customers to get a re-usable plastic container to transport their food in.

    Brock Hospitality Services is, quite literally, going green.

    A new program aimed at diverting waste and making the food services at Brock more environmentally friendly launched Monday.

    Through the new Green 2 Go program, anyone purchasing food from Guernsey Market, The Hungry Badger in Walker Complex or either the DeCew or Lowenberger residence dining halls will have the option of using a re-usable plastic container.

    Initially, customers will have the option of having food servers put their food into one of the green 6”x9” containers. When they go to a cashier to pay, they’ll be charged an extra $5 fee for the container, which can then be taken anywhere by the customer. When they’re finished with it, the container can be returned dirty to any of the four participating dining areas, where they’ll receive a Green-2-Go card, which can be handed to a food server to get a new container.

    “In the past, we couldn’t do this because people had to clean the containers themselves,” said Iain Glass, Director of Hospitality Services. “Now, we can put these containers into our industrial dishwashers to be cleaned an sanitized.”

    The containers seal tightly so they won’t spill, and they keep food warm longer than a typical take-out container.

    Glass said they can be washed about 800 times before needing to be recycled and replaced with a new one.

    For now, only one type of container is being offered, but a screw-top soup container is also being developed and will be added if the program takes off.

    For more information on Brock’s sustainability initiatives or the Green 2 Go program, visit brocku.ca/hospitality-services

    Story from The Brock News

    Categories: Food, Sustainability, Sustainability at Brock, Waste

  • Keeping Brock green makes for a busy tree planting program

    Friday, November 11, 2016 | By

    From The Brock News

    It was hard not to notice the row of honey locust trees in front of Taro Hall being removed in October to make way for the $24-million expansion of Brock’s Goodman School of Business.

    Less obvious, however, is the plan that had long been in place to replace them with even more new trees around campus.

    In the past two years about 155 new trees have been planted by the Brock grounds crew, an initiative that can be traced to the construction of the Cairns Family Health and Biosciences Complex, said John Dick, Manager, Ground Services.

    “When Cairns came along, we had to remove trees, but we planted way more trees than we removed,” said Dick. “They haven’t necessarily gone back in the same spot, but we’re planting mostly native trees and placing them in locations where they will thrive well into the future.”

    One of the challenges for Grounds Services is finding appropriate spots that will allow the trees to mature properly. Many areas have pipes and other obstructions that complicate the issue of digging and planting.

    “Sometimes you wonder why there’s a spot that doesn’t have trees, but there are a lot of underground services that prevent them being planted there,” said Dick, who added that maintaining a balance with wide open areas on campus is also important.

    Another issue crews have been dealing with for the past year or more is removal of dead or dying ash trees, as the relentless emerald ash borer insect continues to devastate those native hardwoods.

    “All of Niagara is affected. There are some treatments but they’ll only work for the short term. Most of (Brock’s ash trees) are showing signs of having the insect. There are a number of young trees that haven’t been affected yet, so the hope is they may outlive the insect,” said Dick, adding that most of Brock’s ash trees were fortunately not of significant size or age.

    As ash trees are removed, they’re replaced with a wider variety of species.

    “We try to add tree species to keep our diversity going,” said Dick, “so that we don’t have the same problem in the future.”

    Categories: Sustainability, Sustainability at Brock

  • Brock biologist featured in book on influential environmentalists

    Tuesday, April 19, 2016 | By

    From The Brock News

    Brock University biologist Liette Vasseur is featured in a recently published book profiling women environmentalists around the globe.

    “I was honoured, almost scared; I was so surprised,” Vasseur says of appearing in the book Citoyennes de la Terre (Women Citizens of the Earth), a collection of profiles complied by Florence Piron, a professor in the Department of Information and Communication at Laval University in Quebec.

    Vasseur was noted for a variety of accomplishments, including her work with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Commission on Ecosystem Management, being President of the Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology (CCWESTT) and president-elect of the International Network of Women Engineers and Scientists.

    She also holds a UNESCO Chair in Environmental Sustainability and is a member of Brock’s Environmental Sustainability Research Centre. She has research partnerships with a variety of Canadian and international governments and organizations.

    Vasseur is noted for her research on communities’ responses to climate change impacts and managing ecosystems in coastal and forested areas, taking her to such places as Burkina Faso and China.

    “Who would have thought that this little country girl, who loved to draw animals and help out her florist father, would one day become this accomplished woman who has contributed so much to research on climate change and sustainable development?” writes profile author Vincent Leboeuf Gadreau.

    “Who would have thought that her passion for the environment and communities would one day lead her to work with leading scientists on the other side of the planet and influence changes to environmental policies?”

    In the book, Vasseur joins such notables as Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai and Canadian politician Elizabeth May.

    Categories: Sustainability, Sustainability at Brock

  • Brock, Australian university sign agreement on sustainability research

    Monday, March 28, 2016 | By

    Story from The Brock News

    Brock University has signed an agreement with the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) in Australia that will enable Brock students to pursue a PhD in sustainability at USC.

    The memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed March 14 by Brock Professor and Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) member Gary Pickering and the Director of USC’s Sustainability Research Centre Tim Smith, formalizes a long-running research relationship between Brock and USC in the areas of global change, sustainability and resilience.

    For several years, USC has offered a transdisciplinary PhD program in sustainability that synthesizes research in the social, economic and behavioural sciences to address environmental and societal concerns.

    This new agreement will allow researchers from Brock’s ESRC to supervise students in the sustainability PhD program, and give students the opportunity to study in Australia and Canada.

    “The ESRC is tremendously excited to sign this MOU with USC. It will allow for deeper research partnerships between Brock and USC and it will bring doctoral students into the Centre who can contribute to its burgeoning research culture. This is a great step forward in the development of the ESRC,” says ESRC director Tim Heinmiller.

    “This MOU builds on existing, high impact research collaborations between the Sustainability Research Centre at USC and the ESRC at Brock. All involved intend this to be a very active MOU, and together help build the capacity in our young researchers and scholars to meet the global challenges in sustainability that we face,” adds Pickering.

    To strengthen this new partnership even further, USC has established a new PhD scholarship in Social Dimensions of Global Change. Under the MOU, Brock students can apply for this scholarship, which will cover tuition, living, and travel expenses.

    USC is offering one scholarship for this program. The deadline is April 29. For more information click here.

    To learn more about the PhD program click here.

    Categories: Sustainability, Sustainability at Brock

  • Brock University commemorates Earth Hour through words and action

    Thursday, March 17, 2016 | By

    From The Brock News

    In the lead-up to this weekend’s Earth Hour, Brock University is actively promoting the concept of environmental conservation to our youth – by word and example.

    Biology professor and UNESCO Chair on Community Sustainability Liette Vasseur is fresh off the heels of a live stream session that she delivered to high school students across Canada. Her lesson explored the inter-relationship between climate change and agriculture sustainability.

    Vasseur also supervises graduate students’ research on teaching environmental concepts to children in homeschools and elementary and secondary schools.

    “High schools need to have a course – or at least a half-course – on protecting the environment and sustainability,” says Vasseur, adding that this basic education can lead to more awareness and action down the road.

    At the university level, Brock has increased its “diversion rate” to 68.5 per cent in 2015.

    “That means that 68.5 per cent of materials we generated ended up not going to the landfill because of our Blue Bin recycling and organic waste collections,” says Domenic Maniccia, director of Custodial and Grounds Services.

    “It’s a collective effort between staff, faculty, students, food services, residence; everybody has a stake in it,” he says, adding that Brock University is among the Top Five environmentally sustainable universities in Ontario with respect to waste diversion.

    In addition, Brock University will be taking a number of measures to commemorate Earth Hour, which this year will take place from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. March 19. These include:

    • Parking Lots T, U, V in Zone 2: lights out (Zone 2 permit holders will be able to park in Zone 1 from 4 p.m. on March 19 as a result of lights out in Zone 2)
    • …. click here to continue reading this story.
    Categories: Sustainability, Sustainability at Brock

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